My Significant Learning

Austin Bahr
Introduction to Psychology
Salt Lake City Community College
April 27, 2018
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I have always been amazed and intrigued by how a phenomena can be interpreted or

understood in what seems to be an infinite number of ways by different people. A homosexual

wedding can be viewed as beautiful or abhorrent. A personal insecurity may change they way an

individual understands the constructive criticism of a well meaning colleague. Each individual

uses reasoning to interpret their life experiences, yet it seems that we typically end up seeing the

world through the rose-tinted glasses of our own perception while chasing after objective reality.

“A sensation is any stimulus that is received through the sensory organs of the body...

Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information so that it makes

sense” (King, 2016, p.86). When I look at a car, I know it is a car because I have driven a car and

have been taught they this mechanical mode of transportation has the name of “car”. An

individual who had never seen a car before would not innately understand that a car was after

only receiving the visual stimulus of seeing an automobile. As illustrated in the previous

example, different people may experience the exact same stimulus yet interpret the sensation

differently depending on previous experience and knowledge. This example also illustrates

Bottom-Up Processing; the brain receives stimuli from sensory organs and interprets the

sensation based on previous experience. Another way that the brain uses to process and influence

our perception is Top-Down Processing. This kind of processing involves using previously

gained understanding and experience to predict future outcomes. Putting numbers in numerical

order or predicting the continuation of a pattern utilizes Top-Down Processing.

Both of these processes shape our perception of the world and each one relies on

previously gathered information and experience. To me, this is where things get interesting. If I

adopt false ideas and biased opinions as true, my perception of the word will not be an accurate
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representation of objective reality. Rather I would begin to see the world in a way that made

sense to me and my preconceived notions.

My first time experiencing this was when I was a sophomore in high school. I was raised

by a devout Republican family in the fiercely conservative state of Idaho. I remember my father

listening to conservative talk radio any time I was in the car with him. On these radio shows, the

hosts routinely invited liberal individuals onto their shows and berated them with insults for

having opinions opposite that of the host. I routinely heard these hosts refer to the liberal guests

as stupid, dumb, and/or delusional. I came to the understanding that people who had liberal

views were indeed “stupid” people. Imagine my surprise when one of my friends told me that he

held liberal political views one day as we ate lunch at school. I was shocked. “How could he be

so stupid? Doesn’t he know that he is wrong?” I thought to myself. Because of biased

information, my Top-Down Processing in this moment was not sound. People obviously can’t be

inherently stupid based on differing political ideologies. Thankfully this experience opened my

eyes and I realized the error in my information processing. The experience helped me realize

how damaging incorrect information can be and that I should never accept an opinion as fact.

More recently, as we discussed perception and sensation in the classroom, I began (and

have continued to) take inventory of my myself and my perception of the world in an attempt to

see things as they are instead of how I assume they may be. I have made some humbling

realizations about myself, but the realization that my perception has been out of alignment with

objective reality has given me the opportunity to critically think and analyze and change my

ideologies and behaviors so that I can perceive and experience reality in a more objective way.
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Understanding the way we process information helps us process new information in more

objective and realistic ways. Realizing that our perception doesn’t always give us an objective

understanding of outside stimuli pushes us to gather more information and facts so that we can

correctly interpret new information and fully understand that world and people around us.

Realizing that we will always be biased in some way will hopefully motivate each of us to

eliminate as much of that bias as possible so that we may see things as they truly are.
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Works Cited

King, L. A., & King, L. A. (2016). Sensation and Perception. In Experience Psychology (pp.

84-124). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.